Do I have anywhere else to go? Not really. My parents don’t have a spare bedroom.
“Do you want to come stay with me, Lena?” Leo asks.
I shake my head.
I can’t stay there either. My relationship with Darby is strained—nonexistent would be the better word for it, actually. Plus, they’re about to have a baby.
I don’t have enough money for a place of my own, and I have no prospects of a job or a finished manuscript in the near future.
In short, I’m fucked, but I can’t be here anymore.
I can’t handle being the outsider in this family dynamic. I can’t handle breaking my brother’s heart every time I fail at being anything other than dead inside. I can’t promise I won’t keep fucking up, and now that my messes are a threat to the ten-year-old girl I’ve become quite fond of, I can’t bear that guilt either.
“Where are you going to go, Elena?” Everett asks. “I want you here, I promise you, I do. I just need you to try and be better.”
I shake my head, my vision tunneling, darkness closing in around me. The room feels like it’s shrinking—the ceiling falling down, the walls closing in. My breathing is labored, I know it’s a panic attack, and I need to get away.
“I need…” I set my coffee on the counter next to the bottle of vodka I really wish I could take with me. “I need air.”
Brushing past both my brothers, I don’t bother grabbing a coat as I toss the front door open and step out into the rain. It’s the kind that falls in sheets with the wind, like a constant mist blanketing the world. A chilled sheen of moisture coats my skin as I take off down the driveway and start running.
Running from my issues like I always have. A familiar burn emanates in my chest, a brief reprieve from the emotional painI’m trying to outrun. Breath escapes my mouth in short, rapid bursts, which are preferable to the choked sobs of panic.
I’m wearing cotton shorts that are already soaking through, and aIt’s always sunny in Pacific Shorescrewneck I got from Heathen’s, which is hilarious considering the weather right now. My worn-out Converse have no business slapping against this slick pavement, but I don’t stop.
I don’t know where I’m going or why, only focusing on the rain on my skin, sea air in my lungs, the ache in my legs, and the burn in my chest. I welcome them as I close my eyes, hitting a comfortable rhythm and allowing my body to take over my brain, leading me wherever it wants to be most.
Water drips into my eyes, causing me to squint. I’m hardly able to see where I’m going, but I can just make out the street sign ahead of me that readsStrand. That same aching familiarity erupts in my chest again. The intricate sense of knowing that if I turn right at that corner, I’ll be led to the safety I so desperately need.
It’s not safety I deserve.
It’s a selfish craving, and it’ll inevitably lead to the ruin of more than just myself. Yet, as I reach the intersection of Pacific and Strand, I make the turn. I continue running, faster. More urgently. Until I finally stop, hands on my knees as I heave and swallow gulps of air. Heavy drops of water form on my lashes, still dripping into my eyes and blurring my vision further, but I know exactly where I am.
I’ve been here before, just once.
Just like the last time, I hate myself as I do it, but my feet move of their own accord. Up the drive and to the steps, until I’m in front of that olive-colored door. I’m soaked to the bone, a puddle already forming at my feet, my hair a mop in front of my face.
I rap my knuckles against the wood, waiting with bated breath as footsteps echo on the other side, but that same sense of knowing—that guiding wind—wraps itself around me. A word that’s become foreign in recent years flashes through my head—safe. It rings clear as the lock turns, the hinges creak, and his face appears in front of me again.
8
VIOLET
“EXILE (FEAT. BON IVER)” - TAYLOR SWIFT
She looks like a drowned rat.
I have to bite back a laugh at that intrusive thought because the look on her face tells me right now is clearly not the fucking time.
Her depthless brown eyes look even darker with the purple circles beneath them, telling me she didn’t sleep last night. Her clothes are soaked, clinging to her skin, water cascading down her face and legs. Her hair hangs in heavy, wet clumps around her shoulders, drops falling off the ends and into the puddle she’s now formed on my doorstep.
She’s a mess.
Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen. I can’t tell if she’s actively crying or if it’s just the rain falling down her face in heavy rivulets. Her gaze bleeds desperation, and her soft mouth parts, breath huffing like she can’t quite find the words.
I don’t have them either. I’m too fixated on those lips. Fixated on every inch of my skin they’ve brushed across, on all the words they’ve ever said. In the way they moved as they whispered my name that night just before she left me. How goddamn badly I long to hear them beg for my forgiveness.
I’m still staring at them as they begin to move, and my eyes snap to hers.
